The iPhone has proven itself as more than a luxury item. All cellphones that can’t browse the Internet quickly became dinosaurs the second the iPhone was released. Sure, I pay more per month for service (just under $70 on my grandfathered plan), but it’s worth it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used the GPS with Google Maps to figure out where I am, or I learned something important with the ability to check my email/twitter/Facebook/etc.

A lot of people I know live without cable television. Considering you can save over $600/year by going unplugged, it’s not a bad idea. Cable TV is a lot of money, especially if you tack on the HD DVR and extra channels. You can watch a number of TV shows online now, but there isn’t one clean solution to put them on your big, shiny LCD.

In September, that will change.

Get ready to spend $99 on the iTV from Apple. Kevin Rose (founder of Digg) says the device “will change everything”. If you look at his reasoning, he’s absolutely right. Of course, the Boxee box will be released right alongside the rumored iTV. Unfortunately, not many people outside the tech community have heard of Boxee (and everyone has heard of Apple). Google TV will join the party a little later, providing iTV with the same competition that the iPhone faces from Android devices.

Forrester says 14% of Americans are considering buying a tablet next year. Companies are rushing to get their tablet out the door. Instead, they should be rushing to come up with their Internet set-top box.

Anyone want to buy a 40GB Apple TV?

Click here to view the embedded video.

What are my memories from 2009? Well, off the top of my head:

• Getting snowed in and working from home while watching the inauguration of our first black president.
• Flying home abruptly in January because my grandmother passed away.
• Experiencing my first economic downturn as a full-time employee. It wasn’t much fun.
• Glen Wesley Night at the RBC Center on Feburary 17. The Bruins won.
• Being a part of the Triangle Red Sox Nation green softball team (there are three teams, and green was new in ’09). We didn’t win much, but we had a lot of fun in the spring/summer and fall.
• Hanging out with Triangle Red Sox Nation while we watched the PawSox defeat the Durham Bulls from under the famous snorting bull in left field (as seen in Bull Durham).
• Playing golf for the first time at Knight’s Play Golf Center in Apex. Someday I’ll get better.
• CHI 2009 in Boston, April 5th-9th. I ran into a lot of old friends.
• Our gesture research at HumanCentric. Will data analysis ever end? I hope so.
• Discovering Bonobos. Well-designed pants with an unlimited return policy. I used to hate wearing anything but jeans.
• Visiting Charlotesville, VA for Rebecca’s cousin’s wedding. The downtown pedestrian mall and Monticello are must-sees.
• Visiting the Outer Banks and staying at a great bed-and-breakfast, the Cypress House Inn. Enjoyed going up Currituck Beach Lighthouse, watching an Outer Banks Daredevils game, grabbing a quick dinner (with a beer) at the Outer Banks Brewing Station, and a more low-key dinner at The Colington Cafe.
• Summer vacation on Cape Cod.  Enjoyed watching the rain-shortened 2009 CCBL All-Star game at Fenway from the covered grandstand behind home, and showing Rebecca around Cape.
• Running. I used to think only bionic humans ran more than 1/2 mile. Now I’m running 5K with ease, but there are no marathons in my future.
• Labor Day weekend in Equality, Alabama. I consider this my first introduction to the deep south and lakeside living. Trivia fact: Patriots LB Adalius Thomas was born in Equality.
• Islamorada and Key West, Florida in late October. It was my first time in the southernmost state. I think about the great Cuban food at El Meson de Pepe every now and then.
• I worked over 100 hours in a week with a trip to Chicago. It was tiring, but oddly fun at times.
• Rebecca and I took a quick weekend trip to Oak Island, NC before Thanksgiving. I’m looking forward to exploring the Wilmington area more.
• I spent another Thanksgiving in Georgia with Rebecca’s family, but this time we ate at a buffet restaurant near Helen, GA. The food wasn’t great, but the reunion part was interesting. Cirque de la Symphonie in Atlanta was amazing.
• Christmas festivities in Raleigh, including two parties in one night and watching The Nutracker by the Carolina Ballet.
• Another Christmas on Cape Cod, but this time there was snow on the ground! I used some fake gift boxes again, but only had a 25% success rate this year instead of last year’s miraculous 80% success rate. Oh well.
• And, finally, I’ll be headed back to Raleigh before the year-end to host a New Year’s Eve house party with Rebecca.

Gizmodo was quick to look at both Garmin and TomTom’s stocks on the day of the announcement:

When I bought my Garmin nuvi 660, I saw this coming. My digital camera is already collecting dust, since my iPhone 3GS’s camera is good enough for most purposes. There are GPS applications for my iPhone, but I still pull out my Garmin just because it is already paid for (and the iPhone GPS applications are not).

What’s the future for Garmin and TomTom? Well, Garmin attempted to create an iPhone killer called the nuvifone. It was a good idea, but very poorly executed. TomTom handled things a little smarter, and were the first company to announce a turn-by-turn GPS application for the iPhone (though not the first to release one). TomTom even managed to realize that they could make a little money on hardware by selling accessories (including the suction cup).

Garmin’s nuvifone will undoubtedly bomb, and the company’s future is uncertain. TomTom will probably scrape by, but they need to somehow stay on top of Google.

Hopefully the Kindle platform and/or other quick online publishing solutions will encourage more short stories like this one.

http://robinsloan.com/2009/41/

Click here to view the embedded video.

[Gizmodo]

This video demonstrates that running in place becomes a lot more interesting with realistic scenery. It combines exercise with visual stimulation and learning. With full-motion video instead of Street View images, this would be a lot better.

Nintendo intends to satisfy all audiences with simple, rendered worlds and playful music. However, adults prefer real music and real world experiences (or at least that’s my guess). That’s why I’m predicting Wii Music will fail.

Try to run on the google street view like a jogging game of wii fit from katsuma on Vimeo.

Now, you can choose from 24 different colors for your labels. Associating a color to a label makes it more salient, and it is a lot easier to visually recognize what an email is (e.g. is it from your work life or a personal email?). Another great feature Google added was the ability to remove labels with ease without having to use any drop-down menus:

This simple feature will probably save me a lot of time because I am always accidentally assigning a label to something. Previously, you had to go the particular label’s emails and then find the email you wanted to remove.

Google says that these features are only available in Firefox 2 and IE7. They only work in the latest version of Gmail (with IMAP and the re-organized contacts section).

It turns out that the combination of Firefox 2.0.0.5 and the Adblock Plus add-on prevent the login page from displaying for Google Adsense. Google’s Inside AdSense blog suggests clearing your cache and cookies and disabling the Adblock add-on in order to log in.

I think I will just load up a different web browser (maybe the new Flock 0.9.0.1).

The one thing that I would like to do with the map is embed it on an external web page. Unfortunately, Google does not let you do this, and probably will not since it would destroy any potential business plan they have with the new product. Oh well.